News

There's gold in them-thar awards

Posted on June 08, 2015

Awards!

We have a new addition to the brewery today. It’s shiny and golden and topped by a hop.

It’s our gold trophy from this past weekend’s Canadian Brewing Awards in Niagara Falls (www.canadianbrewingawards.com). Yes, I am proud to say that our Charcoal Porter took home gold at the gala event on Saturday night. We had been made aware that we were up for an award but it was a nice surprise to be awarded gold. This is the same beer that won a silver at the Ontario Brewing Awards and brewed as an exclusive for the Charcoal Group of restaurants, including BeerTown locations here in Waterloo Region (Waterloo and Cambridge) and London. (www.charcoalgroup.ca)

It was a real thrill to be honoured in this way at our first CBAs. Canadian Brewing Awards are handed out yearly to brewers who best fulfil - in the judges’ opinion – the taste and standard for a particular style of beer. It seems our lowly (ahem-chest puffed out) brew excellently fulfilled all the criteria of this ‘working man’s’ beer. The Porter style of beer has its roots in the working-class streets of London in the 18th century. Meant to be a meal for energetic porters, it was often a mix of aged beers and younger beer, used brown malt and was fairly hop-heavy and is still closely related to stout beer. After falling out of favour mid-20th century, we are happy that this most-satisfying and flavoursome beer has made quite a resurgence. We're going to be brewing Charcoal Porter again to be ready for mid-July so visit us then to try it and see why our lovely brown beer is gold (and silver) in a glass.